Pulp City Revisited

Back into Pulp City after a long break! Kitbash Games ran a couple of small Kickstarters in 2019/2020 that produced some new material. Leon of Kitbash was a key player in the last Pulp City iteration (Supreme Edition – 2015) and is leading efforts for the next update – Full Effect. Kitbash has a separate line of super hero minis to go with their Supers Unlimited skirmish game. Both of these Kickstarters provided cards and profiles for both games, but I’ve only focused on Pulp City.

The 2019 Kickstarter had a large range of minis that filled gaps in the Super Unlimited line. The 2020 Kickstarter, or Teamstarter focused on one new team – Team Aegis – comprising of 9 models. The team composition is a little different from others in Pulp City as there is no Blaster role and two Speeders. Lots of synergy across the team and with pairs of characters. The full team comprises 16 levels of characters, which gives plenty of options for small and large games.

Team Aegis consists of:

• Star Phantom, the Leader
• Nighteagle, a caped crusading Infiltrator
• Autodog, his robot companion, a Support
• Sunwing, an archaeologist, turned Star Stone infused Speeder
• Sunhawk, her bodyguard saved by the Star Stone power, also a Speeder
• Primor the Powerful, a Brawler from another world
• Robokid, the boy genius Support
• Big Bot, his sentient creation, a Powerhouse
• Mep the Space Monkey, a Mascot – a new character role

Star Phantom has typical stats for a leader, with lots of Action Points to use in a turn (5), Flight movement type and decent hit points. His Exclusive abilities are quite flexible with Stellar Blast allowing him to select from an array of effects and Phantom Mode, that lets him turn Spectral to avoid physical attacks. His powers let him gain dice and work best when close to other team members.

Nighteagle is a Batman-esque character who relies on equipment and tactics to gain advantage. One new mechanic introduced with this team is a Utility Belt, which provides 3 slots of consumables for use as needed. As an Infiltrator he can deploy anywhere on the table outside of the enemy’s DZ, but also has a power that lets Autodog plus one other friendly Supreme to deploy with him. Very useful for starting the game with table control.

Big Bot is a Powerhouse model that is quite strong and works well alongside Robokid. The action resolution in Pulp City is to roll a pool of dice based on the action’s listed traits (Attacker v Defender or Target#). Pools of dice are generated from abilities, conditions or stored up dice. The highest result from the pool is added to the ability and results compared. Extra effects (EFX) can be triggered by high rolls in the pool. Standard traits (grey on the character card) trigger EFX on a 6+. Trump traits (red on card) trigger on 5+. Powerhouse Trump traits trigger on a 4+. With a healthy pool of dice to roll, Big Bot can turn into a very stompy robot!

Speeders are fairly rare in Pulp City and this team has two. Speeders are allowed to take 3 movement actions when most characters are restricted to 2. The Mascot role is new to the game and doesn’t add to th team cost. It generally has a supporting role, but the whole team suffers penalties if it is ever KO’d.

Next up, I put a few team members through their paces in a solo-mode Invasion! scenario …